Hurricane Emily Hits Mexico Again; 4,000 Evacuate in Texas

Hurricane Emily blasted northeastern Mexico with powerful winds and rains Wednesday, demolishing homes, triggering floods and forcing evacuations on both sides of the Mexican-U.S. border.

The week-old hurricane packing winds of 125 mph came ashore before dawn near San Fernando, about 80 miles south of the border, and spread destruction even as it steadily weakened to tropical storm strength by late in the day.

There were no immediate reports of deaths or injuries, but thousands of residents and tourists were ordered to evacuate homes and hotels along the Gulf of Mexico. In southern Texas, about 4,000 people fled to 14 shelters.

The storm was closing in on Monterrey, the country’s third-largest city, and officials there set up shelters to prepare for flash floods.

Wednesday night, Emily had winds of 70 mph and was expected to slow to a tropical depression early today, forecasters said.

Near San Fernando, one of the hardest-hit areas was the fishing village of Carbonera, where many of those who had been evacuated returned to find their homes destroyed. Lakes of floodwater were everywhere.

“The hurricane finished us,” said Javier Hernandez Galvin, a 45-year-old fisherman who was left barefoot, wearing only pink shorts and an old blue T-shirt.

Galvin said his home had survived the storm, but a shed where he stored his fishing equipment and boat had been reduced to scraps of wood.

Eugenio Hernandez, governor of Tamaulipas state, which includes San Fernando, said officials were still assessing damage. He said some people had fled their homes Wednesday night because of a rain-swollen river.

Emily’s landfall Wednesday was the second time in three days the storm had hit Mexico. Last weekend, it swept across the Yucatan peninsula after drenching the southern coast of Jamaica, where it killed four people and washed away at least three homes.

Officials in Tamaulipas state, which borders Texas, said 18,000 people had been evacuated Tuesday from 20 seaside communities -- including nearly everyone from Carbonera, which appeared to have taken a direct hit from the storm. The weather apparently cut off many small communities.

Carbonera was considered too unsafe for even emergency officials to remain behind. Most people here remember when Hurricane Gilbert tore through the area in 1988. It caused 300 deaths in Mexico and the Caribbean.

“Because of Gilbert, people did not resist” the evacuation orders, said City Councilor Laurencio Garcia.

At least 10 people, however, refused to leave town.

“I stayed to guard the little I had,” said 55-year-old Cornelio San Martin, who said he had sent the rest of his family to a shelter in San Fernando, but complained that officials there had given them nothing to eat.

Others who refused to leave were Jose Mario Lara, a 52-year-old fisherman, and his family, who stayed in a tin-roofed house.

Also Wednesday, Mexico’s state-owned oil company, Petroleos de Mexico, prepared to reinstall more than 16,000 workers who had been evacuated from offshore oil installations in the northern Gulf of Mexico.